


Loving the Monster

by Deviation



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-13 11:03:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11758482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deviation/pseuds/Deviation
Summary: Knowledge is knowing that Frankenstein is not the monster.Wisdom is knowing that he is.Or:Lavenza, and how she learned to love Humanity, The Trickster, and herself.





	1. Intro

**Author's Note:**

> Basically this spawned when I realized that all the Velvet room inhabitants are named after characters in Frakenstein.

Knowledge is knowing Frankenstein is not the monster.

Wisdom is knowing that he is.

 

* * *

 

He makes her out of heart strings, he says. Heartstrings and stardust. Igor doesn't lie, so it must be true. She's a servant to a servant, they all are, and the first thing they're given upon opening their eyes is a book and an order: find your name.

It's a human book. Humans, she’s born knowing, are strange, weak, and ugly creatures, frightened of anything that doesn't look similar to them: and they most certainly would be frighted of her. She's the youngest in this strange room, and the others have long since chosen their names.

Every day Igor asks, “What is your name?”

And every day she responds, “I don't know.”

The book is strange, even by human standards. She can't quite tell what she's meant to understand. What is she supposed to see in the humans in this book? Most of them are ignorant, spineless things, or innocent victims, or terrible people. Igor says they're meant to guide humanity- all she can see is reasons to let them drown.

Still, she reads, all the way to the end. When she finishes, Igor asks yet again, “what is your name?”

But she shakes her many heads, because she doesn't have an answer, not yet.

“Interesting,” Igor says with a grin, “heartstrings certainly seem to have made an impact on your mental landscape. It seems reading alone will not be enough for you to understand your place here,” he waves his hand, and between them a basin of water rises up, warped silver skulls overgrown by green ivy make up the base.

“Look into the water, little one, and find your name.”

So she does.

 

* * *

 

There's a boy. He had a mop of black curls and sad grey eyes. He's playing by himself. He's small, thin wrists, but chubby cheeks. He looks up and for a moment, he thinks he sees her. She's not sure what to do- humans are terrible, ugly creatures, but this one is so small and quiet.

He stands from his kneeling position in the sand box, and begins to walk towards her. She panics as he draws closer, not wanting him to touch her, but he walks straight through her, likes he's a ghost or maybe she is.

She whips around, her many eyes wide and not-flesh rippling, as she watches the boy sit on a swing. There's another one of the human children there- a slightly taller boy, with hair like raven feathers. He's drawing. Cautiously, she steps over to the two and peaks down at what the raven boy is drawing. She blinks in surprise- it's the sad-eyed boy.

Sad-eyed boy waits patiently, for a human. Quietly kicking his feet. He didn't say anything when he saw raven boy was drawing him, and says nothing now as he sits next to him. She finds it strange, because the book made it seem that all humans are impatient to be acknowledge as grand.

Eventually, Raven boy looks up and tilts his head to the side. He doesn't seem embarrassed to have been caught, but curious. The Sad boy smiles and it transforms him- from Sad boy to Shining boy. Raven boy blinks, taken aback.

Shining boy gets up then and without speaking takes hold of the swing that Raven boy sits on and does something rather odd- he pulls, then pushes the boy away. Raven boy clings his sketchbook with one hand and onto the chain with the other. His eyes are wide, like marbles and he half twists to look at the Shining boy behind him. Shining boy only smiles.

The Raven boy doesn't seem to know what to do, but moves on instinct, kicking his feet in and out in a mismatched rhythm to Shining boys pushing. When the rhythms eventually match tho...Raven boy soars. He releases the sketch book, letting it fall to the dirt, and laughs, high and bright and full of light. She's so taken aback by the way it transforms the Raven boys face, how he goes from dour and strange and serious to something made of feathers and light. And it was the Sad and Shining boy who did it for him, without being asked. Without asking for anything.

How strange. She wonders what the monster in the book would have done with someone like the Sad and shining boy in his life.

The laughter is cut short by a harsh whistle, like a dogs whistle. And little Raven boy folds his wings so quickly she wonders if she ever saw him fly. Wood-chips go soaring as he skids to a stop, and he nearly falls out of the swing trying to collect his sketchbook. His little hands shake. Sad and Shining boy helps him, or tries to, picking up a stray piece of paper, but before he can return it, the Raven has run off to his master, a foul looking man with greying hair and a sharp scowl.

He grabs the Raven by the shoulder and steers him away. The Raven looks over his shoulder, once, longingly, and the shining boy waves. Perhaps humans have a sort of unspoken language, because the Raven smiles a small smile, and seems less small himself, standing just a little taller.

And the shining boy is alone once more- no longer shining, alone in this place where children are meant to play. He sits on the swing and kicks his feet, one hand delicately holding the sketch left behind. He looks down at it, and she looks over his shoulder, curious.

It's beautiful, raw talent- unrefined and rough but beautiful. A simple flower, with a butterfly resting delicately atop it.

He folds it up into a simple square, and hides it in his jacket pocket. He sits alone on the swing- idly kicking his feet back and forth and he seems so small. An hour lasts, then two like this. A long time for humans, she understands, especially human children. The sun sets and still the boy sits alone.

He moves suddenly, hopping off the swing, rubbing his arms, and walks towards one of the exits. She follows, or tries to, because in a blink she's gasping , standing in the Velvet Room once more.

Igor smiles at her- he's always smiling, but something is different this time, she recognizes.

“What did you think?” He asks.

She doesn't know what she thinks. Or what she's supposed to think. She shakes her head, hesitates, then asks, “who was he?”

“Hmmm? The boy?” He chuckles, “interesting one isn't he? I've had my eye on him for some time.”

That says a lot, and nothing at all. She's coming to realize that Igor speaks mostly in implications and riddles. Like everything is a puzzle that's more fun to watch other people solve.

“Do you know your name yet?” Igor asks. He's not impatient with her, merely curious. The other residents of the Velvet Room had apparently known their names after the first time they read the book. Some knew the first time they saw their name in it. She's different, made of heartstrings and stardust, so maybe that's why it's taking her so long to figure it out.

She shakes her heads no, and he hums, curious, she recognizes, but also pleased. She wonders why, and than wonders why she's wondering.

He extends a hand to her, ancient book held loosely, carelessly, and she receives it reverently, fingers meeting the idea of fingers. She goes to her corner, sits down, and reads again.

 


	2. Accelerando

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Children don't stay children forever.

When they catch you, they will kill you.

But first, they must catch you.

 

* * *

 

 

Time passes, or doesn’t pass depending on how you look at it. She still has no name- the worn and frayed book Igor had given her is now even more worn and frayed- pages dog eared on the passages she found particularly interesting.

Humans are very odd creatures.

Igor doesn’t ask about her name- he seems to have come to a sort of decision, but skeleton grin widens when he speaks with her, like he knows a secret. Which he probably does. She turns to the other inhabitants of the Velvet Room- the ones who chose their names so much more easily than her, for guidance.

Apparently, they once took the forms of humans, all of them. But over time, they gave up those forms for things better suited to them. Margaret was once the most beautiful, Theodore whispers in his own way, words blooming to life on old parchment, Beautiful, but cold and the most loyal of all the siblings. Margaret grew only colder when Elizabeth left, Theodore writes, the ink bleeding on Elizabeth’s name, like a pen held too long to paper.

She never met Elizabeth- she asks Theodore why she left. She doesn’t mention that she didn’t know they could leave in the first place- she is new to this world, and they are servants to The Servant, but Igor would never chain them: she should have realized she was free to go if she pleased.

Instead of his usual purple prose, he simply says, “She fell in love with a blue-haired boy.”

“What happened to him?” She asks.

The parchment is blank for a long while. Then ink blooms in strange patterns, like water. She’s about to ask what happened when, in uncharacteristically succinct wording he says, “He died.”

She doesn’t understand, but Theodore isn’t talking- only the strange water-droplet like inks stains appearing. She goes to Belladonna and Nameless, the Phonograph and the Piano. Nameless gave up speaking with his chosen form, giving himself to the music he so loved, Belladonna sung, and Belladonna wished to not be confined by the limitations of human vocal cords. She asks them why Elizabeth left, if her blue-haired boy died.

Nameless clinks out a slow, sorrowful tune, while Belladonna's record spins soundlessly for a few moments. She sings, voice clear and low, of love so strong it could topple mountains, if only she’d been allowed to interfere. She sings of a boy who defied fate, only to submit to it- and of Elizabeth, who couldn’t accept that and chose instead to follow in his footsteps, and find a way to change fate.

It ends on a low note in minor Nameless. She huffs, frustrated. Is she supposed to understand something now? See something new? She doesn’t. She sees a fool and a human. They all die anyway, what’s the point in getting attached to one?

She knows better than to say so but she goes to Margaret, a songbird.

“I will not speak of the past,” Says Margaret, “You want to know why you cannot choose a name.”

Finally, someone with sense, tho she is embarrassed to have been caught up in the mystery of it all. She nods.

Margaret ruffles her feathers, says, “We are guardians of Humanity- we chose our names based on what we admired most about them.”

She scowls, dumbfounded, “Why bother?” she snaps, “They’re all falling to ruin anyway.” But the image of the Sad Boy flashes in her mind and she quiets down.

Margaret puffs her feathers out, agitated, but she calms with a coo, “Maybe so,” she sighs, sad, wistful, “Master Igor has been playing this game for longer than any of us, and even he wonders at the nature and purpose of the game. Why steer them towards good, when so many choose chaos instead?”

She nods, agreeing. A few shining spots don’t make a rotting apple less rotten.

“Master Igor sees something in them, I think” Margaret says, softly, “They are such strange creatures, terrible and beautiful.”

She is silent, thinking of the sad boy, the raven boy, and the man who whistled like the raven were an animal.

“Young one,” Margaret says, fluttering her wings, “Do not fall in love with a human.”

She scoffs, but pauses, curious, and asks, “Why?”

Margaret is silent, her small beady eyes peering into her as though she were a being with a soul. She answers, “For it is a sin in the Velvet Room,” she says, as though it were practiced, “and,” she continues, softer, less stern, “Because in the end, it will always hurt.”

Margaret ducks her head under one wing, obviously intending to sleep, but one last question remains on her mind, “Margaret,” she asks, slowly, “why did you chose that form?”

She doesn’t think Margaret will answer, at first, but then, softly, “Because I could fly away from Master, if I wanted to. But I choose not to. And that means something.”

She stands there for a long moment, staring at nothing, her many eyes unblinking, her vaporous form shifting uneasily. She turns, and leaves with more questions than answers.

Finally, she turns to Igor himself.

“You have a question?” Igor pretends to ask.

“Why were you made?” She asks, “And why did you make us?”

Igor doesn’t stop smiling, as he answers, “I was created by Philemon to edge his bets in his favor- I am but a doll, as are the other inhabitants of the Velvet Room.”

She scowls, temper flaring, “Dolls don’t create!” she snaps, “Dolls don’t feel! Dolls don’t fall in love with humans!”

Igor nods, smile widening, “Yes, this is true.”

“What game are you playing?” She demands, “Why am I part of it?”

“All living things are playing the game,” Igor says instead.

She opens her mouth, stomping her cognition of a foot, but stops. They, Igor, can’t be a doll and a living thing. Nothing can. But they are. They’re something in between.

“What happens,” she says, slowly, “If we lose?”

“Now you are asking the interesting questions, little one,” Igor says, “But perhaps it is time you read your book again. There is a time and place for all questions.”

Igor never stops smiling, she thinks as she walks back to her own make-shift corner, perhaps he cannot. Perhaps he was made that way- to smile, no matter how he may be feeling. If it were what he wanted, she’d likely be smiling now too.

What do you do with broken dolls?

She picks up her book. She reads. She reads about Belladonna used to incite Scarlet Fever, and the nameless homeless man, Margaret who kept the story, Elizabeth who loved Victor, even as he fell to obsession. She tries to see in them what her fellow occupants see in them. She reads with slightly different eyes, and understand more than she did before, as well as less.

She’s learning, growing, blossoming into something new- a child, understanding that what is seen is not all that it seems.

She reads. And the other occupants of the Velvet Room watch as her viscous, gaseous form changes, solidifies, becoming something a little more real. Here, there are hands and feet, with five fingers and toes, here are eyes, just the two, bright yellow like the sun, like stardust, here are lips to speak with, watch how they turn downward, concentrating.

Soon, thinks Margaret, who coos. Soon, thinks Belladonna who sighs static, and Nameless who plays a soft chord, Soon, thinks Theodore, the image of Elizabeth walking away burned into his memory. Soon, thinks Igor, pulling a card from a deck older than humanity.

He lays its face up, the smiling woman stares back, her hands in the jaws of a beast. Her teeth are sharp- her eyes sharper.

**_XI_ **   
**_La Force_ **

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Opening lines: watership down

**Author's Note:**

> Hang out with me on twitter @writingdeviant or on tumblr @writingdeviation 
> 
>  
> 
> Me: complains that no one comments on serious interpretations of characters especially if it isn't shippy.  
> Also me: writes think piece about Lavenza
> 
> Let me know what you think, This is gonna be an interesting one, I think. I'm rather pleased with it. I'd appreciate any feedback.


End file.
